Poker is one of the most popular card games. The game of poker originated as a table game. Now, the game of poker has been implemented in video form using electronic gaming machines.
Various forms of poker may be implemented in video poker form. In general, in the play of these games a number of cards are dealt or displayed to a player. One or more of those cards are used to form the player's hand. In some instances, the dealt cards comprise the player's hand. In other variations, a player is dealt a greater number of cards than will form the player's hand, and thus the player must discard one or more cards. In other variations, a player is permitted to replace one or more dealt cards.
In the game of video poker, the player plays against the house or a pay table. In this configuration, a player is declared the winner of the game if they obtain one of the predetermined winning hands. The player is generally paid winnings depending upon the ranking of the hand. A winning combination of cards may include a Pair, a Three of Kind, a Full House, a Straight, a Flush, a Four of a Kind, a Straight Flush and/or a Royal Flush. A number of variations of winning hands may be defined.
As indicated, video poker machines are configured to display dealt and drawn cards to a player using a video display. The video poker machine uses electronics to generate the images of the cards. So that the selection of cards is random, just like when cards are dealt from a shuffled deck, the electronics include a random number generator. The random number generator randomly generates numbers which correspond to particular cards. Cards used in the game are thus selected by the random generation of numbers. The “selected” cards are displayed to the player on a video display. Replacement cards, if any, are similarly selected or drawn using the random number generator.
There are several drawbacks to the game of video poker. Players often have the perception that video games are programmed to generate a disproportionately low number of winning results as compared to the true odds of receiving winning results when playing with physical cards. In particular, because the game is not played with physical cards that the player can see and hold, the player may believe that the gaming machine may easily be programmed to deal or display particular cards which do not yield, or yield infrequently, winning hands. In other words, the player may have the perception that the gaming machine is not configured to deal or display cards in the same manner or with the same odds as if the player were playing the game with a real deck of cards. For example, a player who has four cards of the same suit may on several occasions draw a fifth card which is of a different suit, and thus not obtain a winning Flush hand. The player may believe that the machine is programmed so that they do not receive a card which results in the winning hand except on rare occasions.
As one means of addressing this issue, U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,149,157 and 4,560,161 both describe a method of playing video poker in which an entire deck of cards is displayed on video display of a gaming machine. In these configurations, the entire deck of cards which is used to play the game is displayed to the player. The player is permitted to pick cards to be used in their hand from the deck of cards. In this manner, the player's perception is that they have control over the cards used in the game and that the gaming machine is not selecting the cards in a manner disfavorable to them.
This method of game play, however, has several disadvantages. First, the game requires that all of the cards of an entire deck of cards be displayed. This causes the field of cards which is displayed to be too large. In the case of a video poker machine, the size of the video screen would require that for all the cards to be displayed that each individual card be very small. Otherwise, all of the cards could not be displayed on the screen. This is undesirable to players, who find the cards difficult to read if they are small. In addition, in the case of games played on touch screens, the cards may be so small that the player has difficulty in “touching” the desired card. This may lead to mistakes, such as a player selecting the wrong card.
Another problem with the display of the complete set of the deck of cards is that the cards can not be displayed in an n×n or n×m matrix. It is generally acknowledged as desirable to display game symbols, such as cards, in such a matrix format, and that it is less desirable to display such symbols in other formats. In particular, when cards are not displayed in a square or rectangular matrix, one or more symbols appear to be displayed “alone” and thus appear different to the player. This may lead the player to believe that some trick is being played. In the case of a square or rectangular matrix, all symbols appear to have the same characteristics and none is distinguishable from the others.
In normal poker play, including video poker, the penultimate hand is the Royal Flush. In the case of the game of video poker, this hand generally yields the highest winning payout. As such, a player's desire to obtain that hand of cards is higher than all others.
Unfortunately, the odds of receiving a Royal Flush are quite low. Players know this and thus this to some degree detracts from the game. Another problem with the above-referenced U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,149,157 and 4,560,161 is that they still utilize the same single deck format as is generally used in the game of poker, and thus offer the same low probability of receiving a Royal Flush.
An improved method of poker game play is desired which is particularly suited to video adaption and which is viewed as favorable to a player.